eBothy Blog

The other day Dawn and I were trying to remember the name of a restaurant in Glasgow that we’ve been to and neither of us had the foggiest what it was. So I fired up the phone and courtesy of a Vodafone Femto Cell which gives 3G coverage in the middle of nowhere, we used Google Maps to virtually walk down Bath Street and stand outside the restaurant, noting its name and phone number. Job done. Rewind a couple of years to where I met a bloke near the summit of Beinn a’Bhuird who had a phone he kept looking at and I’m sure he had earphones dangling too. So I suspect he was using an early form of GPS, probably a Nokia as they were popular back then but strangely he had joined me on the edge of the cliffs. I was there to take a bearing where the cliff edge turned south, so I knew exactly where I was for an accurate bearing to the summit on the featureless plateau but he had a GPS and only now I’m wondering why on earth he ended up at the same spot as me. Why didn’t he navigate straight to the summit? Leaving aside such questions, I think I was witnessing the birth of smartphone based navigation. A topic much in the news these days and tipped to knock GPS units into the void. But just how accurate and reliable are GPS’s? (more…)

Yesterday, I slammed the brakes on and reversed up the road as I caught sight of a flock of little white birds. Much whiter than anything around at the moment and I knew straight away what they were. Snow Buntings! They’re ten a penny in gardens in Iceland but in this country I’ve only ever seem them on the summits, like this little fella on Cairngorm five years ago:

Fantastic little birds and the ones I’ve met on Cairngorm and on the Fisherfield summits were tame to the point of friendly. The Gaelic for Snow Bunting is Eun an t-Sneachda (the bird of the snow) but I prefer the other version, Gealag an t-Sneachda. Geal means white and ag is the feminine form of the diminutive so Gealag means the little white one and Gealag an t-Sneachda means The Little White One of the Snow. Beautiful name.

You can see more of the Snow Bunting on Cairngorm here.

Now it’s a real winter! After the recent dump of 2 feet of snow, mainly in the east, the Scottish Avalanche Information Service have issued a statement about the conditions and they’re not looking too good at the moment. Basically, the high winds and heavy snow from the NE have made the entire mountain mass of the highlands one huge avalanche area with natural avalanches bound to happen almost anywhere above 300m. The latest forecast says it all. Note the “considerable” risk (i.e. avalanches will occur) on all leeward slopes above 300m:

Be careful out there!

At last, the snow cleared enough to get out of the village and just in time too, as I was booked on to the Winter ML refresher at Glenmore Lodge at the weekend. So I thought I’d bimble up Ben Wyvis on the way across on the Friday. The forecast was for light snow showers and winds gusting to 60mph. Still benign for this area but a bit wilder than anticipated. I hadn’t been up Wyvis in yonks but apparently there’s a spiffing path all the way  but from the word go it was slushy snow lower down with the path disappearing once I was out of the trees and I just plodded up squishy snow fields to the foot of the steeps of An Cabar.

The Avalanche information service SAIS have been warning about the very still, calm conditions that have been the norm over the last fortnight or so in the Scottish mountains. This lets phenomenally beautiful but deadly crystals grow in the still air:

I was idly browsing January’s TGO, yes it’s only December but the mag is a month ahead and alongside the usual excellent content, there was an article on winter navigation. Now, as I’m heading for Winter ML assessment next winter (consolidation this winter), I took note of some points, especially the bit where it said that 6 index contours in 1cm on a 1:50,000 map is a slope angle of 30deg. That’s the most common angle for big avalanches, so it helps to be able to spot one on the map when you’re planning your day out in the winter mountains. Where does that number come from though? Well, with the rain lashing the windows and the gale rattling the slates (bit wild at the eBothy today), I thought I’d brush up some ancient maths skills to find out.

I’ve just found out my winter climbing log book is fine for Winter ML so this season I will mostly be concentrating on nav, nav and lots more nav! There was snow down to about 2000ft this morning on the Knoydart mountains but it’s all mostly gone in a blur of west coast drizzle and very low clag. Ideal navigating weather! It’s starting to get near the time when you can get ready for the real winter arriving. You can get some nasty conditions up there, what with storm force winds and driving snow but without white outs and cornices at this time of year, so it’s an ideal time to “get the winter head” back on and get used to just how wild it gets. The general opinion these days is less snow but much more wind so what does fall gets blown into dangerous lee accumulations leaving you to contend with a mixture of avalanches and iron hard neve and ice, not to mention bare rock to blunt your crampons. (more…)

The chart looks interesting, tightly squeezed isobars for Saturday and the forecast is for 100mph on the tops, with snow thrown in for good measure.

Yes it is the “silly season” as it’s known in journalistic circles, when parliament are off on their hols and the news is sluggish, so the media turn to the weird and wonderful to keep the papers shifting off the shelves. This time it’s that old chestnut of “making the mountains safer”, to paraphrase some apparently hillwalking hack called MacWhirter. He has nothing better to do than knock up a article on waymarking Scottish mountains, to make the “mass participation” sport of hillwalking less “elitist and nihilisitc”. To quote the hack in question. Obviously the MCofS take a different view. MacWhirter’s evidence that we, the hillwalking masses, are elitist and nihilistic is based on the vast network of paths in places such as Bavaria and the Alps, where visitors are treated to a well documented, marked and easy to follow network of walking paths in the mountains. In short, they are spoon fed their scenery. Also, these paths more often than not, link up manned mountain huts, so the distances over which walkers must traverse “wild” country is minimal compared to the Scottish highlands. Throw in the continental weather pattern of long periods of settled weather followed by well forecast storms that last a day or two and you can pretty much guarantee those paths will be empty during bad weather. Most people just don’t go out on a bad day in the Alps. (more…)

Grough have an interesting article about Naismith’s Rule and associated gubbins by various baggers who have modified it over the years. I’ve never been a great fan of it myself as it’s a bit too cumbersome when you’re on the hill but for nights spent poring over the maps with a single malt in hand, it gives a rough idea of how long a walk will take. 4kph and 1min per 10m ascent seems to cover it for most people. An average group will average around 3kph over the entire day, taking into account slow ascents and faster descents. (more…)